Photographer Amy Lombard‘s series “Nails Pt.2” explores what might be charitably described as excessively exaggerated toenail art. Now obviously these are acrylic nails on the toes and not the real thing. Lombard worked with nail artist Sonya Meesh to create this, er, rather interesting effect. I dig the shrimp cocktail fork image (Is this a clever visual pun on “shrimping”? Methinks that might be the case.) You can follow Amy Lombard on Instagram and Twitter to see more of her work.

After looking at Lombard’s series, I got curious if people actually did do this in real life with their real toes. The short answer will come as no surprise: yes they do! I got lost looking up long toenail art on the Internet. I had so many burning questions: like WHY? Do you have to buy bigger shoes? Do you put holes in your socks? Can you even wear socks? How do you walk without breaking them? How do you drive a car? Do you scratch wood floors? Do you your toenails hang over your bed?

I don’t know if these questions will ever be answered but I do know the answer to one of my questions: Why not?

I’ve added images of folks IRL who sport super-duper long toenails. Those are posted after Lombard’s photographs.